[Dixielandjazz] McNight Channels Sophie Tucker - Palm Springs Desert Sun

[Robert Ringwald]

McNight Channels Sophie Tucker 'for the Children'
by Bruce Fessier
Palm Springs Desert Sun, December 12, 2011
How do you build an audience for a tribute to a singer who was born more than 125
years ago?
Well, you start by booking cabaret star Sharon McNight, who, as she'll be the first
to say, has grown into the role of vaudeville star Sophie Tucker.
Then you make it a benefit for local foster and adoptive children and invite a few
celebrities like Elinor Donahue, Margaret O'Brien and Morgana King to show their
support.
Then you tell people only three percent of foster children ever make it to college.
And you show them video clips of the local children who will be helped by this fundraiser
for the Foster Parents and Adoptive Parents Association.
That's what filled the Grand Ballroom of Hotel Zoso Sunday night.
McNight, who was nominated for a Tony Award for "Starmites" in 1989, made me feel
as if I knew Tucker by her performance in "Red Hot Mama."
She came out like a brassy Ethel Merman, wearing a gorgeous gown and hitting high
notes like a trumpet player. She had a comedy delivery like the late Milton Berle,
who was a kid when Tucker was a star in vaudeville. And she had a bawdy sense of
humor that manifested even in her ad libs.
When she took off her coat, her dresser's hand appeared through the back curtain
and McNight quipped, "A magic hand comes from out of the curtain! Maybe I'll stand
next to the curtain."
Tucker died in 1966, but baby-boomers know her through Bette Midler's Sophie Tucker
jokes.
Younger folks might know the term "red hot mamas," but few realize it derives from
a genre of singing so pejorative to African Americans, I can't even mention it in
our family newspaper.
But her style of singing original hits like "Some of These Days," "There's Going
to Be Some Changes Made" and "Hard-Hearted Hannah (the Vamp of Savannah)," which
she didn't perform, seem to pass through the generations by osmosis, like "Jingle
Bells" or "Rain, Rain Go Away."
Comedy styles change so dramatically (that line alone might have qualified for a
laugh track in the '50s) that it's hard to imagine a woman who was knockin' 'em dead
with the Ziegfeld Follies of 1909 still being funny today.
But McNight not only gets laughs with Tucker's jokes and delivery, she earns bravos
for singing a 1928 tender ballad that should be ridiculously cornball today. She
brings "My Yiddishe Mama" to life by adding context in character as Sofie. We learn
the teen-age Sofie divorced her husband and left her young son with her parents to
pursue a career in show business at the turn of the 20th century. That broke her
mother's heart and McNight channels Tucker's anguish. That, along with her ability
to hit powerful high notes, is what makes the song a highlight of the show.
This was a one-time-only performance by McNight, who lives in Los Angeles. But Carl
Bruno and the Betty Hutton Estate he heads will be back next year for another quality
benefit show. Carl not only presents these shows, he and his partner, Michael Mayer,
have two adopted foster sons themselves.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
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